HD noise

When I wrote to disk, for about ten days it sounds like something is
trying to rotate but is too tight. Something between a squeak and a grind.

Otherwise it's fine. (AOpen AMD64)

After my 1985 10MB Xebec Owl was about two years old it made like a
metalic scratching noise, almost like high pitch whistle. The PC maker
said the solder joints holding the casing together were lose. I asked
if my machine was in danger, he replied "Only if it causes you to throw
it across the room"

Point is, how do I know if this is dangerous?

- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Remorse begets zeal] [Windows is for Bimbos]

<vjp2.at DeleteThis @at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com> wrote in message
news:fo27hq$jls$2@reader2.panix.com...
> When I wrote to disk, for about ten days it sounds like something is
> trying to rotate but is too tight. Something between a squeak and a grind.
>
> Otherwise it's fine. (AOpen AMD64)
>
> After my 1985 10MB Xebec Owl was about two years old it made like a
> metalic scratching noise, almost like high pitch whistle. The PC maker
> said the solder joints holding the casing together were lose. I asked
> if my machine was in danger, he replied "Only if it causes you to throw
> it across the room"
>
> Point is, how do I know if this is dangerous?
>
> - = -
> Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
> ---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
> [Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
> [Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Remorse begets zeal] [Windows is for
> Bimbos]

There are lots of apps available that will report on drive health. I use
SeaTools (http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools).
SpinRite (available from www.grc.com (at a cost)) has also been of great use
to me in the past.

Having said that I would be inclined to assume it *is* a serious problem
regardless of what these utilities report and make a backup of all important
files immediately.

Note that SpinRite works the drive pretty hard so backing up before running
it is probably a good idea!

Ed Metcalfe.